Nov. 15, 2011
Karen Jenvey
Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
650.604.4789
karen.jenvey@nasa.gov
RELEASE: 11-92AR
NASA'S SUPERCOMPUTER MAINTAINS RANKING, SUPPORTING MORE RESEARCH
MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. -- NASA's largest supercomputer, Pleiades,
maintained its status as seventh on the TOP500 list of the world's
most powerful, high-performance computers. The TOP500 list is created
by a group of international supercomputing professionals who made the
announcement on Nov. 14, 2011 at the 26th International
Supercomputing Conference (SC11) in Seattle, Wash.
The 112,896-core Pleiades system, located at NASA's Ames Research
Center in Moffett Field, Calif., enables more than 1,000 scientific
and engineering users to advance our understanding about the Earth,
solar system and the universe, as well as to improve the design and
safety of space vehicles for future space exploration.
“We’re pleased that Pleiades has maintained its position on the TOP500
list, and what we’re most proud of, are the discoveries and
innovations that are made possible for important science and
engineering projects across the agency,” said William Thigpen,
systems and engineering branch chief in the NASA Advanced
Supercomputing (NAS) Division at Ames.
"To keep up with the ever-increasing demands by NASA’s top missions
for supercomputing resources, we will be adding 1,700 new SGI ICE-X
nodes to the existing Pleiades system in early 2012,” Thigpen added.
With the expansion, Pleiades' peak performance will rise from its
current 1.34 petaflops to about 1.7 petaflops. A petaflop is a
measure of computer processing speed. Pleiades delivers about 17.5
million times the power of the first Cray X-MP supercomputer at the
NAS facility in 1984.
Some examples of real-world science accomplishments enabled by
supercomputing resources over the years include increasing space
shuttle safety, hurricane tracking and prediction, estimating changes
in the condition of our oceans and seas, and creating improvements on
a heart assist device.
For more information about the TOP500 list, visit:
http://www.top500.org/
For more information about the NASA Advanced Supercomputing Facility,
visit:
http://www.nas.nasa.gov
For more information about NASA, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov
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